PAC-12 CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 11, 2021

Jules Bernard

UCLA Bruins

Postgame Press Conference

Oregon State - 83, UCLA - 79.

Q. Can you take us through those last two offensive plays. It looked like on the first one even though the shot was blocked you got raked across the head. Did you feel that contact? On the second one, were you just trying not to charge there and that's why you threw it out or what was on your mindset there?

JULES BERNARD: Yeah, the first play we were trying to draw fouls on their players who had three or four fouls and sort of get them in, get them out of the game. So I tried to get to the rim and I tried to draw the contact. I felt like I did, but the refs, they do a great job throughout the game, and it's obviously a hard job to catch everything, so it is what it is on that.

Then the second half play, I got the rebound and I pushed and I saw Reichle was, I was sort of sprinting and I knew it was going to be hard to slow down, and I saw Reichle was trying to take a charge, so I knew I had two teammates to my left and I tried to get it back to them. It just didn't work out.

Q. You guys had trouble in the second half, but overall 19 points, 7-13 shooting. What can you say about kind of taking over the game when other players aren't making it, just try to keep the team in the game?

JULES BERNARD: Well, I just think our team, all the players, I feel, really want to win. When the opportunity presents itself to make plays to try to help the team win, whether it's me or whoever it is on with the ball or whoever is on the court, if the opportunity presents itself they're going to try to make that play to help our team win. And there were opportunities for me and I took them, but that's not what I'm worried about. I feel like on the defensive end I could have helped my teammates a little bit more. Thompson, they ran pick and rolls and switched me off of him and they, almost every time in the late second half and even in the overtime, he drove and spun and I feel like some of those plays I should have been there on the spin to sort of either strip the ball or just get it out of his hands. So I'm more worried about that, just the mistakes that we and myself made on the defensive end.

Q. You guys lost four in a row now and you kind of wait until the Selection Show on Sunday. Do you think you guys are a tournament-worthy team and if you do what's the case that you think you can make? What's your argument for being a tournament team at this point?

JULES BERNARD: Well, I've never been in this situation, obviously, but I feel like winning or losing this first game, it's sort of tough because we didn't plan, we didn't -- obviously we planned to win all three games, so we're just going to probably watch film, wait and see. But I feel like, I do feel like we are a tournament team. We have the players to be a tournament team and in all these past four losses, the games have been our game and it's just little mistakes, little things that sort of cost us the games. But I think we're a few plays away from winning those four games and having a way better record. So I do believe we are a tournament team.

Q. Is there a psychological factor out there? I mean, you guys, it's kind of a repeat of the last three games that you guys had out there. Was it hard not to kind of have an, oh, here we go again, you know, worry as the game unfolded?

JULES BERNARD: No, no. After the USC game we, it was tough to take in, obviously, but that was behind us. We saw this tournament, this post-season, as basically a new season, a new start. Everybody has a fresh slate. And, yeah, so there was, we weren't really thinking about what happened in the past three games, we were just trying to play hard and win the game.